Tom Petty Goes to the Vault in Live Offering Spanning DecadesBy David GonzalesThe Epoch Times - March 3, 2010

Album Review: "Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers -- The Live Anthology"Live concert albums don't get much better than "Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -- The Live Anthology." Imagine four CDs of outstanding music by Tom Petty and his longtime band, the Heartbreakers, spread out over 48 tracks recorded in concert between 1980 and 2007. The song selections span Petty's storied career, from his breakthrough 1976 debut album to the 2006 Grammy-nominated "Highway Companion."

If it wasn't already written in stone, this album leaves no doubt that Tom Petty stands tall as one of America's premier music artists. The Heartbreakers aren't too shabby either, with various members making their own, well-respected mark in the music world, most notably guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Good Enough" -- "Mojo" will be the first Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers album in eight years. The first single is a loosely structured jam song that starts right out of the gate raging with the blues. The screeching guitar riffs and heavily present organ clue us in that this is a different band than the "Free Fallin'" days. The song tells the story of a good girl who has gone bad. Petty is a sucker for those.

Ever wanted to pet a wildebeest? Running down a dream to touch an emu? You got lucky, babe, when you found this petting zoo, located in the warehouse district. Owned by the Floridian rocker himself, the zoo is home to over 50 exotic animals from around the world. Go!

Mojo (June 15)Lowdown: After 34 years, Petty and company haven't lost their rock 'n' roll mojo or their loyal 'n' patient fans, who haven't had a studio fix since 2002's The Last DJ. The band has sold 60 million records since its 1976 debut and remains a powerhouse on the road, racking up its biggest tour grosses to date in 2008. They'll add Mojo tunes to the hit-laden set list on a tour that runs June 25 through October.

Highlights: Inspired by his early band Mudcrutch, Petty recorded live in the studio with no overdubs or studio gimmicks. On Southern-tinged electric and acoustic songs, the band moves from rock and country to romantic balladry and an unexpected reggae romp. Petty's tales include a blues-rocker about Thomas Jefferson's dalliance with slave Sally Hemings.

Tom Petty left his heart in San FranciscoBy Ben Fong-TorresThe San Francisco Chronicle - May 2, 2010

Last Sunday, I had a cover story in Parade magazine, with an interview with Tom Petty, who has an album coming out in June with the Heartbreakers ("Mojo"). During our visit, in his beach house in Malibu, the 59-year-old rocker waxed nostalgic about radio and San Francisco.

His first album came out in 1976 and included songs like "American Girl" and "Breakdown," but couldn't catch a break - except in two cities. "I wouldn't exist without FM rock," said Petty. "They were totally behind me. KSAN really was the first place ... SAN and WBCN in Boston. For a while, they were the only people playing our first album. They were open-minded. ... I think those guys, Tom Donahue and people like that, were truly pioneers."

Some time in the last few years Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took a left turn. Maybe it was when Petty woke up in the night with the idea of reuniting his first band, Mudcrutch, to cut the album they never got a chance to make back in the early 70s. Maybe it was when the Heartbreakers assembled the mammoth multi-disc The Live Anthology, which detailed thirty years of concerts. Maybe it was when they gave all their home movies, outtakes and live footage to director Peter Bogdanovich to create the Grammy-winning four-hour career documentary Runnin' Down A Dream. There have been side projects and experiments since the band last went into the studio to cut a new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album. With MOJO, they have taken their recent freedom and experimentation to heart. They have gone off the reservation and all signs indicate they aren't coming back.

The first thing that hits you about MOJO is that the spirit of the Mudcrutch sessions has carried on with the Heartbreakers. This is the sound of a band playing together in a room - not a studio - facing each other, all singing and playing at the same time. The music is alive, with no overdubs or studio trickery. What you hear is what they created on the spot at that time.

Tom Petty says, "With this album, I want to show other people what I hear with the band. MOJO is where the band lives when it's playing for itself."

The first studio offering from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in eight years, "MOJO," finds the legendary band firing away on all cylinders. Instead of hunkering down in a sterile recording studio going over every drum track, guitar solo and vocal nuance with a fine-tooth comb, the group set up shop in its cozy practice space (dubbed "The Clubhouse") to cut the record live, thus resulting in a complete overhaul of its creative process.

Flanked by tiers of guitars and photographs of influences and old friends such as George Harrison, Petty and his longtime compadres (Mike Campbell on guitar, Benmont Trench on keyboards, Ron Blair on bass, Scott Thurston on harmonica and guitar and Steve Ferrone on drums) played face-to-face with the tape rolling to capture the raw energy so familiar to anyone who's ever seen the band in concert. "We haven't done a live record - like a proper live record where the whole band plays together at the same time and we really wanted to do that," Campbell reveals. In between the real work, the band filled time by slinging back beers and riffing on old blues standards like a regular neighborhood garage band - albeit a multi-platinum-selling garage band.

Is Tom Petty ageless? He certainly seemed that way at Red Rocks on Tuesday, the opening night of his North American tour.Watching Tom Petty perform on the opening night of his 2010 tour at Red Rocks with longtime band the Heartbreakers, it struck me that there is something ageless about him.

Sporting a duster and playing Rickenbacker guitars most of the night, he didn’t look much different than when he released his first album in 1976.

Petty's show Tuesday night was long on hits and material from his latest CD, "Mojo." Fans reveled in track after track of golden material. In fact, does Petty ever write a bad song? Some may be better than others, but it's rare to hear a true clunker come out of his oeuvre.

The Heartbreakers' new blues-based album was inspired by the sound of Campbell's recently acquired sunburst '59 Les Paul, says Petty's longtime lead guitarist and musical foil.

"I got a new guitar which is actually an old guitar," the 60-year-old picker says from his Southern California home. "It's the classic Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Eric Clapton-era guitar. There were only 500 or 600 of them made that year. There's just something about the harmonic overtones in it when I picked it up and plugged it in, it immediately had that classic British blues sound. It was kind of eerie.

"And Tom had been listening to a lot of blues on our break. So when he heard that guitar, he said, ‘Why don't we build an album around that guitar?' It kinda came from that. It was a combination of Tom wanting to explore that aspect of our influence and wanting to feature this guitar."

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